(President Sinhala Kanthabhivurdi Sangvidanaya, former Chairperson, National Committee on Women, M/WA, former Vice President, International Alliance of Women and Civil and Political Rights Commission)
Re-visiting Vavuniya after nearly four and a half years by members of the Sinhala Kanthabhivurdi Sangvidanaya - popularly known as SKS was an awakening experience. The visit was in response to a positive invitation from Vavuniya.
It was both expected and unexpected. Expected, due to the past performance of SKS members who pioneered masonry and carpentry training projects for women to build and repair the houses ravaged by the war, from 1989 onwards, the widows' black gram cultivation project etc.
During the period 1989-1999 SKS successfully implemented several welfare and rehabilitation projects in the North and East.
In the early period it received support from the Sri Lanka-Canadian Development Fund. Such services got disrupted due to a number of factors that prevented facilitation and dialogue with the Vavuniya people.
Backed by State obligation the recent Ceasefire has ensured achieve basic conducive conditions to bring about family and community life to some kind of normalcy.
Yet, in general, the problems encountered by the people of Vavuniya and especially the Internally Displaced Persons, are numerous and conditions are not in adherence with international human rights norms.
As we entered the Vavuniya town last November 2004, we witnessed the 'new look' Vavuniya was much alive in comparison with the scenario of 1989.
We drove up and down to identify people, places, shops, schools etc. A new 'facelift' to Gamini Maha Vidyalaya and Tamil Maha Vidyalaya in the town. Colour washed buildings, green gardens, groups of students in uniform and the pleasant mummer of the school population. At last, the innocent students seemed assured of a future.
Broken down black soot covered buildings with myriads of bullet marks (we remembered of our past visits) had disappeared. The town seemed "alive and kicking".
The ghost town of the past no longer existed. Well clad men, women, and their families moved about in the most normal manner (devoid of surreptitious glances) attending to their daily needs.
Several Commercial Banks, Cargils Food City, real estate business centres, private shops filled with TVs', computers and a range of electrical goods, agricultural equipment, tractors' harvesters and other utensils provided a new message of hope for the future.
Global communication centres, textiles and fashions well displayed and food outlets reflected the opportunities of movement and social interaction. It seemed as if the restriction of rights, suffocation and humiliation of the IDPs and the resident villagers were over.
Vavuniya also seemed saturated with NGO activity. Commencing with UNHCR, and other UN agencies, a large number of local NGOs such as Youth Development Centres, vocational training institutes, rehabilitation oriented NGOs, women's development organisations, HIV-AIDS centres and others displayed their nameboards very conspicuously.
No doubt State aid had given a new complexion and new dimension to education in these once abandoned district, at a minimum level.
However when subjected to intense scrutiny much remains to be done for the schools. We spent much time talking to school principals, teachers and students and teacher-monks. they seemed happy to communicate with the visitors.
Here is what they had to say -
1. Students' basic school needs (excluding uniforms and text books) were insufficient. There was a lack of reference books and reading material, for examination classes.
2. The poor economic conditions of parents who had lost their livelihoods, and had been displaced were non-active to the needs of children.
3. Thereby counselling was an imminent need for many school children also as well as teachers.
Requests were made to us for a workshop on counselling and the services of counsellors, to train the teachers for useful services in this field.
4. A small number of schools had received computers from the education offices and NGOs but faced a severe shortage of IT trained teachers; two or three teachers available provided their services on a rotation basis.
5. Scarcity of teachers for teaching of English as a subject. A request was made for a few competent teachers in English to visit Vavuniya and train teachers to improve their competency or create a pool of teachers of English to visit the less developed district schools in the island, on a regular basis.
6. Students and teachers seemed to be aware of the numerous awareness raising and training workshops held in Colombo schools to improve skills, and capacities of youth out in Colombo.
Why could not Vavuniya have such benefits? SKS promised to conduct workshops for school prefects and students on community leadership and capacity building if arrangements could be made in the future. Students obviously realized that such training could motivate groups and communities and promote community integration.
7. The desire for more social interaction was highlighted. It was considered to be an effective instrument of social reform and a means to community strengthening.
The motivating speeches made by the visitors urging the students to knowledge based planning and development had obviously generated student enthusiasm, by the time the Colombo visitors departed.
Villages
On our visit much time was spent at Madukanda, Atambagaskada, Mamaduwa, Kachchikodiyar, Nelumkulam, Irattakulam, Puliyankulam, Neddikulam, Parikkapali etc. The last mentioned village did not contain the original Wanni people, so we were told.
Families brought from the plantations sector under former state policy, had been settled on crown land allotments.
Going past Pullukulam we had a good view of the LTTE burial grounds. Adjacent to Echchamkulam the LTTE burial grounds glowed under a myriad electric tube lights and globe lights bringing into focus thousands of white tomb stones erected for the dead.
The imposing entrance designed in the form of a colourful kovil pandal attracted public interest. A group of LTTE members kept guard day and night. They conversed in Tamil with the S. L. army officers expressing a note of goodwill in response to the questions put to them by the officers.
Welfare goods in the form of clothing, cooking utensils, crockery etc were distributed by SKS to one of the most poverty stricken villages known as Parikkapali.
A well clad lass of 24 years from the village read out a list of names that identified the poorest of the poor, a list provided by the Grama Sewaka. She did so with poise and confidence.
We talked with women about their living conditions and needs, about war and peace." No! Never again the word 'war'" they said. "Tell the leaders we do not want war not any more." "We want to live, to cultivate and enjoy our children."
The names of the villagers were interesting. A few had unusual prefixes. They spoke Sinhalese with a Tamil mixed dialect. Names such as - Pula, Velathi, Bandaththige Piyadasa, Rajasinghe, Menikrala, Thunhamine, etc. One old woman, hagged and hunched pleaded for an extra family pack from those brought for distribution.
A child of nearly 2 years was suckling the old woman's skinny breasts. "Why" I asked her, "Whose child?" "Not mine, his 'Mo' has left him to me. She has gone away with a young Tamil man." 'Mo' referred to the mother of the child. She got an extra family pack plus financial contributions from the visitors for being a surrogate mother. Cohabitation was common in these villages.
Malayaparichchikulam village held a new history. It was also known as the junction where the head was chopped off. Here the burial ground had been set up on crown land, where many LTTE ambushes had taken place. This is the place visited by ghosts where an LTTE member had chopped off the head of a soldier.
The head had been placed at the junction, for the public to take notice. Members of the S.L. army and the Civil commissioner did their best to help the villagers interact with the visitors.
Vavuniya re-visited revealed new stories and warnings to a struggling nation. In retrospect and by comparison the face of the district showed a positive change for the better.
Yet it appear that the present development levels would be unable to satisfy better the needs and yearnings of the different communities. Conducive conditions for the basic enjoyment of human rights appears to be far away.
The large sums of aid promised and flowing from foreign countries is bewildering. Human resource management, co-ordinating programmes, accountability and transparency being the bedrock of good government cannot be achieved if government plans are chopped and changed according to biased political agenda.
Welfare and rehabilitation is not mere distribution of goods and building structures, it encompasses creative and imaginative roles and programmes positively contributing to uphold equity and opportunity, sustainability and improved administration of justice and law.
The Government must now be aware of the harm that the ethnic conflict has inflicted on the nation. If not properly tackled, the recent tsunami disaster too would wreak vengeance once again in the form of a break up of the country. Political behaviour with private party agenda should be denounced. With less talk and more work, the country must take pride of place.
The intensity of involvement of political parties, NGOs and civil society is challenging.
The entire civil society should be vigilant about all activities and even challenge any injustice perpetrated in the name of reconstruction and re-habilitation in the interest of the people of the country. Partisan politics, divisiveness and carving out political empires must come to an end. Vavuniya reborn is a small lesson by itself.
(http://www.dailynews.lk/2005/03/01/fea05.html)
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